


Interlude

by acernor



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, a little bit, ace killua, but not really they're moving on with their lives, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:23:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acernor/pseuds/acernor
Summary: Killua has family, Gon gets his nen back, and they come together again.





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> CW for a very brief mention of past CSA

They’re 14 when they go their separate ways.

Gon has no nen. He goes back to his family.

Killua has his nen. He stays with his family. 

He stays with Alluka. He texts Gon, and he visits the friends that they’ve made along the way. Even when he’s not with them in person, he’s with them. They’re his family now, and at the center of things, they’re his home while he and Alluka travel.

\-----------

It takes some time to get used to traveling together. They’ve always been able to connect immediately on an emotional level, but figuring out how to decide where to go takes time. 

Killua doesn’t mind; he’s happier traveling with his sister than he’s ever been.

\-----------

It’s half a year later. Killua is 14 and a half, and he’s never kissed someone, never been on a date. He prefers it that way. He has a best friend and he has his sister, and he doesn’t like the idea of dating anyone; he’s too young for all that anyways, is a little weirded out when he thinks about Gon saying that he’s been on dates, when he pictures what those would look like.

He doesn’t really like to imagine it.

\----------

Killua is 15 and he and Alluka have been traveling for a year, visiting beautiful out-of-the-way places and passing through cities like will-o-the-wisps. He gets updates from Gon on his homeschooling progress in a constant stream of texts and voice calls. They’re both older now; when they talk on the phone, he notices that Gon’s voice is changing.

Gon tells him all about his adventures on Whale Island, and Killua likes to picture him- running through the trees and fishing in the lakes and making friends with all the wild creatures that he tells him about. Gon tries to send him pictures of the things around him sometimes, and they’re all blurry or off-kilter or both. Killua sends perfect selfies of himself and Alluka against the scenery they pass, and all he gets in return is a picture of a hairline and a text that says “how do you do those?!”

Killua laughs and talks him through taking selfies via text, but two days later he gets a picture of Gon, Mito, and Abe that’s obviously taken by another person.

Looks like Gon gave up on selfies.

Killua grins, and saves the picture to his phone.

Gon got taller.

\---------

It’s two weeks later, and he’s still looking at the picture.

Gon really is taller.

He tries to remember how tall Mito was when he met her on Whale Island, so he can have an idea of how much Gon has grown. But it won’t come to him. 

Gon may have gotten taller, but Killua did too. 

He types out a message to Gon, then deletes it.

He’s not going to ask how tall he is. 

He doesn’t care if Gon is taller than him. He’s not going to think about it. That would be immature.

...He’s thinking about it. Gon better not be taller than him.

\----------

Killua’s 15 and a half, and he dreams sometimes, despite how lightly he sleeps- even has sexual dreams now and then, though they make him feel slightly uncomfortable. But this is the first time he wakes up remembering a dream with someone else in it. In his dream his body is warm, and Gon is there- still the same height as him, though he knows, in that dream knowledge way, that they’re both taller than they were- and he holds Killua gently in his arms, smile bright on his face. Killua feels the most profound sense of relaxation and safety, as if for the first time in his life he’s going to be able to put it all away for a few moments and just exist.

He wakes up halfway scared by the depth of his reaction, and halfway holding onto that deep sense of safety. He ignores his slight arousal- like usual, he’s not interested in his body’s reactions to sleep- but the feeling he met in that dream stays with him.

After that, Gon becomes an occasional to regular presence in Killua’s dreams, vaguely sexual and not. Killua feels like he didn’t use to dream about people much before- or maybe he’d just trained himself not to remember his dreams- but he doesn’t mind remembering these ones. Gon’s not physically in his life anymore, but Killua likes that he can feel like he’s with him sometimes.

Sometimes in his dreams he knows that he’s deeply turned on and knows just as surely that Gon doesn’t mind and still likes being around him. He guesses those are sex dreams.

\-----------

Gon calls him that year to tell him that his nen is coming back.

“That’s great!” Killua says, leaning the phone on his shoulder as he spins in the desk chair in the hotel room, tossing a ball back and forth with Alluka. Gon told him half a year ago that Ging had said there would be a price to pay if he wanted more than being “normal,” but he guesses Gon must have found a way. He’s not going to ask what the price that he paid is. 

Alluka aims the ball at Killua’s face, and he dodges easily, laughing.

“So do you have to start over with your training?” he says, leaning back in the chair and aiming carefully. Alluka laughs brightly and hides behind the bed.

“Mhm!” Gon says on the other end of the line. “I can’t use ren or gyo or anything right now! I’m learning it all again from the beginning. I tried to get Bisky to help me, but she said it was too boring doing the basic stuff, so I had to track down Master Wing and Zushi. Did you know that they’re all the way off on the other end of the continent?!”

Killua listens, smile wide on his face as Alluka launches herself at him with a pillow.

“Gon, I gotta go!” he falls off the chair, dodging her attack. “Call me tomorrow, Alluka’s asking for a tickling! Good work getting your nen back! Say hi to Wing and Zushi and tell me how training goes!”

Gon laughs and says “don’t be mean to her, Killua!” and Killua blows a raspberry, drops the phone to the floor, and goes to wrestle the pillow out of Alluka’s hands.

\-----------

Sometimes- when they’re in a place that Killua deems safe enough, when Alluka is securely asleep, when there’s no sign that he needs to be in a state of heightened awareness in case of pursuit- sometimes Killua touches himself. He’s 16, and he’s gotten used to his body, used to taking care of it for the relaxation that follows. He doesn’t think about much when he does; just about what his hand feels like, what sort of places they should travel to next, new ideas for how to use his power, weird creatures they’ve met. He can feel a deeper arousal lurking nearby, like there’s an edge he could cross that would take this process from mechanical to overwhelming, and he skirts away from that edge every time, careful not to look at it too deeply.

He’s not sure that he really wants to see what’s over it.

He only feels like he might see past it when he’s asleep.

One time he wakes up from a dream with his underwear wet and Gon’s words still echoing in his head. Gon had been hugging him, holding him close like he used to, and he’d said “Killua, I love you.” Killua remembers the certainty of knowing that Gon was there and wanted to be with him, and how he hadn’t been able to stop the rush of feeling that swept through him at Gon’s words.

He scrubs at his eyes with a hand, and the hand comes away wet. 

Huh.

He doesn’t feel sad, though.

\-------------

He’s 16, and he and Alluka are walking along a path leading them over the top of a mountain, away from a temple, when he feels a familiar pulse of nen nearby. 

That’s Gon.

For a single moment, he’s rocked to his core by it. The nostalgic feeling of his nen brings Killua back to two, three, four years ago; to Pitou, to Kite, to Greed Island, to Hisoka, to fighting for their lives. Brings him back to Gon. 

Alluka notices his pause, even though it’s less than half a second. Notices her brother who’s always fully alive and engaged stilling, just for that brief second, and Killua sees her notice.

He shakes himself out of it.

“Gon’s nearby,” he says, looking off in the direction he felt his nen from. “He came here to find us.” He knows that that’s why he’s here.

“Are we going to say hi?” Alluka asks, smiling. Gon sometimes sends baby animal pictures for her and Nanika, and he knows she wants to meet him again, now that she’s older.

Killua looks down the mountain consideringly. Lets off a burst of ren, strong enough that Gon can feel it. Gon’s nen flares up weakly, then quickly goes down. 

Gon doesn’t have it back all the way yet. He’s still much weaker than Killua. Killua grins.

“Nahh,” he says, stretching down to touch his toes. “Gon says he’s going to get his nen back, so-” he reaches his arms up towards the sky, cracking his back- “he’s going to have to catch us first!” 

He holds his arms out to Alluka.

Alluka smiles and sticks out her tongue. “I’m getting too old for you to carry me everywhere!” she says, but swings her legs up into his arms anyway as he scoops her up.

“I’ll carry you no matter how big you get!” Killua says, laughing. “Even if you get as big as Tsubone!”

“If I get as big as her, I’ll be able to turn into a motorcycle and carry you!” Alluka says with a laugh, hair rising off her shoulders as Killua’s nen crackles around them.

“Then we’ll carry each other!” Killua says with a grin, and they take off, leaving the faint trail of Gon’s nen behind them.

\----------

Gon and Killua text every day, but they never talk about the hunt that they both know Gon is on. The closest they come to acknowledging it is when Gon sneaks close enough that Killua can feel his nen flare into existence only two blocks away in Yorknew, and Killua zips Alluka off with a snicker. He sends a text that’s just a laughing emoji, and Gon sends back a red face.

It’s been half a year. Gon’s nen is getting stronger.

\-------

Killua is 17, and he dreams about having sex with Gon. He’d been experimenting with himself earlier that week; trying to finger himself- he knew that some people liked it- but he couldn’t really get into it. It mostly just reminded him of his early torture training, so he’d stopped and just gotten himself off the way he usually did.

A few days later he’s turned on in a dream, and Gon is between his legs, and he guesses that they’re having sex. He’s mostly kind of uncomfortable, and it slowly switches- like dreams do- so that Gon is just on top of him, still moving with him but not inside him. He feels better about that, and lets himself wrap his arms around Gon, ready to wait it out. Dream Gon pulls away, though, and says “Killua!” and Killua looks up, seeing Gon’s beautiful smile on his face. Killua feels himself break into an answering grin, and Gon pulls him up by his hands, and they’re running through trees by a beach, laughing and racing to the finish, whatever they were doing before forgotten.

After that, he sometimes imagines himself and Gon moving together, but he’s not uncomfortable anymore; he looks up and sees Gon’s smile above him every time, and he feels safe.

\-------------

He’s 17, and he gets a text from Gon that just says “Masadora.”

It’s time, then.

\----------------

Alluka knows the fundamentals of nen- to protect herself against malicious intent, should they encounter the person that they’ve been trying to avoid- and it’s just enough to let her enter Greed Island with Killua. He remembers enough of the game to get them safely to Masadora; the people playing are much different than they were four years ago, and no one seems interested in attacking them. Not like they’d get far anyway.

Killua is a lot stronger now.

When they get to Masadora, Alluka spots Gon first. Killua can’t see him, because he’s halfway buried under a pile of dogs. 

He glances around. Seated at a table nearby is Palm, and Knuckle is crouching by the pile of tails and ears. And sitting next to Palm- is that Bisky? She’s gazing at the gem on Palm’s head with adoring eyes.

“Killua!” the pile of dogs says, and Gon- seventeen, brown-skinned, hair a mess with dog slobber, smile still radiant- sits up out of the pile. “You came!”

“Of course I came, idiot!” Killua says, a grin breaking onto his face despite his efforts to hide it.

Gon heaves himself up, dislodging dogs, and runs towards Killua, shedding hair and slobber. “Don’t touch me, you’re so gross!” Killua says, laughing, as Gon ignores him and flings his arms around him. Killua hugs him back tightly as Gon laughs into his hair. 

Gon is taller than him now.

“I set everything up!” Gon says, pulling back and grinning at him brightly. “Everyone’s going to look out for Alluka, so we’ll be all set!”

“Set for what?” Killua says, feigning ignorance.

“Killua!!” Gon admonishes, sticking his tongue out. “I know you want to see whether I’ve gotten strong again! They’re going to watch out for Alluka so we can spar!”

“We’ve never sparred before,” Killua says with a smile, pulling a chunk of dog fur out of Gon’s hair.

“I know!” Gon says, grinning.

\-------------

They fight, and it’s exhilarating and takes Killua’s breath away in all the ways he’d never imagined it would. He had never wanted to fight Gon when they were kids, had just wanted to be by his side; he had never pictured this.

They fight, and Gon is strong again- not strong like he was when he fought Pitou, but stable and grounded and real in front of him. He’s not able to block Killua’s whirlwind of attacks when he uses Godspeed, but his nen is strong enough that he takes all his hits and stays standing, keeps coming after Killua for more.

They fight to a standstill, fight for hours until their nen is exhausted, and at the end Killua and Gon stand, hands gripping each others’, pushing against each other trying to knock each others’ bodies over with brute force, grins wild on their faces.

They long since moved away from Masadora, out to where they wouldn’t break anything important or catch any bystanders up in their sparring. They’re in a clearing in the woods, and the moon is rising.

Killua sees the moon reflected in Gon’s eyes, and he feels a shock of warmth and happiness go through him.

Gon’s back. Back and real and here like he never was before.

\--------------

Killua is 18, and Gon calls him. They went their separate ways after Masadora, but they see each other regularly now, every few months if possible. They bicker sometimes, like they used to- arguments about the best way to get places, complaints about how to split expenses- but it’s comfortable, feels easy. Alluka fits right into their arguments, usually taking Gon’s side against Killua. 

He still can’t believe that he’s regularly betrayed by his own sister.

Gon calls, and says he wants to talk to Killua. Talk to him about how he got his nen back. 

Killua and Alluka head to Whale Island, and meet up with Gon there.

It’s his first time back.

\---------

“I tried to make a nen vow on my life, like Kurapika did,” Gon says, kicking his legs off the side of the cliff they sit on the edge of. The waves crash below them.

“Like you’d die if you did something?” Killua asks curiously, playing with a twig in his hands. He’s trying to shave it into little pieces with his nen. Alluka is at Mito’s house, sleeping safely, and he doesn’t mind using his lightning hot enough to burn when she’s not around.

“Yeah,” Gon sighs, leaning forward to put his chin in his hands. “I tried to swear on my life that I’d never turn my back on a friend.”

“But it wasn’t strong enough?” Killua asks, flinching as the twig in his hand cracks under the heat of his lightning nen. Too much.

“Mhm,” Gon says. He tosses a pebble off the side of the cliff, watching it fall through the darkness to the ocean below. “I had to swear on something else.”

Killua stays quiet, waits. Looks at Gon’s face in the dim light of the half moon. He’s older now, but his eyes are the same as they were the last time they were here, five years ago.

He wants to know what Gon wants to tell him. Just like he wanted to hear what he said the last time.

Gon sighs, and leans back, looking up at the stars. “I swore that if I turned my back on a friend, my nen would kill them.” Kicks his feet again. “And probably me, too. But I don’t know for sure.”

Killua blinks slowly.

“Leorio got mad when I told him,” Gon says, sighing. “He didn’t even listen to the part about the other person, just said it was like what I did before, that I was okay with me dying. But it’s not the same!” He frowns, scrubs his hands into the grass. 

Gon’s fingers catch in the roots. He frowns more deeply. “When I turned my back on you.” 

Killua’s breath catches. They haven’t talked about this, not once over the years.

“When I left you behind,” Gon says, still frowning. “I didn’t even think about it. I just wanted… whatever I wanted, and I didn’t care if I gave it all up to get it. But I never would have done that if it would have hurt you. So I made this vow.” His gaze is steady on the earth. “So that I wouldn’t be able to do that again.”

Killua is unmoving, still in the night air. 

This is how Gon came back.

They’re silent for a moment, then Gon continues. “When I talked to Ging,” he says, still frowning. “He said that when you apologize after hurting a friend, you have to say what you’re going to do and stick to it.”

Killua swallows.

“Killua, I’m sorry. I won’t do that to you again.” His hand tightens in the grass again. “Because if I do, it would kill you. And I won’t ever let that happen.” He turns to face Killua, face determined. “So you can count on me! I won’t throw you away ever again!”

Killua feels like there’s something in his throat, caught and keeping him from breathing.

This… isn’t what he wanted.

“Gon,” he says, but Gon just shakes his head.

“Don’t tell anyone, though, okay?” he says, turning back to look at the ocean again. “I’ve only told you, Leorio, and Kurapika. And it puts a lot of people at risk,” he says with a sigh. “If people knew about it.”

Killua swallows. Breathes again.

“Who else?” he asks, picking a piece of the twig back up to try to keep shaving at it. His hands are a little unsteady. “Who else would… be at risk?”

“Oh, everybody,” Gon says bluntly, looking out at the water. “You, Alluka, Mito. Morel, Palm, Knuckle. Tsezguerra. The examiners from the test. Anybody. Any friend.”

“They’d die if you betrayed them? And it would kill you?” Killua asks, concentrating on keeping his aura honed on the twig in his hand. He’s made it through worse and been able to concentrate.

He’ll make it through this too. He focuses on the twig.

“Not exactly,” Gon sighs. “It’s more like…” he purses his lips consideringly. “If I ever think that they’re less important than something that I’m focusing on for selfish reasons. Like when I wanted to get Kite back,” he says, nodding firmly. “And I didn’t care what it did to you. If I did that again, my nen would probably kill you.” He sighs. “Or if I left a friend who needed me, just to go do something selfish. My nen would kill them, and then me.”

Killua doesn’t say anything.

“Leorio’s still mad,” Gon complains. “I think Kurapika understood, though.”

“Because you wouldn’t let it happen,” Killua says questioningly, trying to come to grips with it. “You wouldn’t ever let your friends be killed because of what you did.”

“That’s what I said to Leorio!” Gon sighs, leaning back. “But he didn’t get it.”

Killua nods, eyes closing in frustration. This is a very Gon strategy.

“I get it if you’re mad,” Gon says, sighing. “I wasn’t sure if you’d think like Kurapika did or like Leorio did.”

“Like I’d think the same way as either of those losers,” Killua scoffs half-heartedly, mind still going a mile a minute.

“Yeah, you’ve never been like anyone else,” Gon says. Killua looks over and sees Gon looking at him with a half-smile, and feels a wall in his heart break. 

Shit.

He groans and leans back, covering his eyes with a hand. “I’m not mad,” he says loudly. “This is just the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard, is all.”

“Well, it worked,” Gon says, sticking his tongue out. “I got my nen back. I can travel and see everyone again.”

“You could have done that without nen,” Killua says, making a face back at him.

“Yeah, but I wanted to be able to be with everyone again, like it was before,” Gon says, smiling as he turns his eyes back to the dark ocean. “I like it like this. When we can do things together.”

Killua rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” He leans sideways, so his shoulder brushes Gon’s. “I like it too.”

Gon doesn’t look at him, but he breaks into a brilliant grin.

\------------------

Killua is 19, and Gon holds his hand.

\-------------

Killua is 21, is 22, is 24, and nothing has really changed, but everything has.

He’s still strong, but he’s not afraid of being weak. 

He’s still moving, but it’s safe to stay still. 

He’s still with his family, but it’s bigger now.

He’s still in love with Gon, but now Gon is in love with him too.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr! acernor.tumblr.com


End file.
